1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a communication method between a portable terminal, such as a smartphone, a tablet, or a cellular phone, and an electrical home appliance, such as an air conditioner, a lighting apparatus, or a rice cooker.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent home networks, home-appliance linkage functions of enabling a variety of electrical home appliances to be connected to networks have been increasingly introduced with not only the progress of linkage of AV (Audio Visual) electrical home appliances through IP (Internet Protocol) connection using Ethernet (registered trademark) or wireless LAN (Local Area Network), but also with the development of management of power usage in consideration of environmental concerns and a Home Energy Management System (HEMS) having the function of turning on/off power from outside. However, there are electrical home appliances, which are insufficient in computing capacity to execute the communication function, or which are difficult to incorporate the communication function from the viewpoint of cost.
To cope with the above-described problem, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-290335 discloses an optical space transmission apparatus for transmitting information through a free space with light, wherein communication is performed using a plurality of monochromatic light sources, which emit illumination lights, to realize efficient communication between devices by employing a limited number of transmission devices.